


A Great Voice for Radio

by E_Salvatore



Series: Tagged: TBTP Tumblr Fics [12]
Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Comedy, F/M, Tumblr Fic, crack!fic gone wrong, semi-serious crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 08:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6110658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/E_Salvatore/pseuds/E_Salvatore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruby and Melissa make some curious comments about Strand’s voice. Naturally, he turns to Alex for answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Great Voice for Radio

“Ugh,” Ruby scrunches her nose up in distaste. “Another sex demon.” She swipes at the screen of her phone, presumably deleting the offensive email.

“Can’t you set up some kind of filter?” Melissa asks, scrolling through her own inbox. She sits on the other end of Strand’s desk, her laptop set up opposite his. Ruby takes advantage of the freedom afforded by the use of her phone, and chooses to curl up in one of the wingback chairs near the window. “I’m certain we could come up with a list of keywords that should automatically be marked as spam.”

Ruby shrugs. “Probably. I’ll Google it. Maybe tomorrow.”

Melissa frowns disapprovingly, but keeps her thoughts about Ruby’s bad habit of putting things off to herself. A quiet hush settles over the office once more as they go back to perusing the Institute’s inbox, trying to single out cases worth taking on. It’s a task that has only gotten more difficult since Strand joined Alex’s podcast. Aside from singling out the obvious hoaxes and practical jokes, they now have the added burden of weeding out publicity stunts, reports that are no more than a struggling business’ attempts to get some airtime and free publicity.

“Any luck with the Sagamore?” Melissa asks, peering over her laptop to shoot Strand a hopeful look. They’d never quite solved that case to their satisfaction, despite Strand’s claims to the contrary at a particularly memorable conference a few years back. When Alex suggested that they revisit the case for her show, Melissa had been all too happy to help her talk Strand into the idea. Now it’s simply a matter of making arrangements with the management, and a quick look at his personal inbox alerts him to a message from the hotel.

“They’ve agreed to a visit next week.” Strand announces after a cursory perusal of the email. He forwards it to Melissa, who quickly starts coordinating with Ruby to accommodate the changes to Strand’s schedule. “Excuse me,” He picks up his phone from where it sits next to his laptop. “I should call Alex and let her know about this.”

Melissa looks up from her phone, already considering the best way to reschedule prior engagements. “You know, it’s getting pretty late-”

“It’s barely past seven-” Strand corrects her.

“Maybe you should call it a day. Ruby and I can finish up here. Why don’t you go home and call Alex?”

“Yeah, boss. I’m sure you guys would appreciate some _privacy_.” Ruby smirks, her voice dripping with implications.

Strand fixes his mischievous assistant with a stern look. “Ruby, what are you talking about?”

“Nothing, nothing,” The girl waves dismissively, her doe eyes the very portrait of innocence. “Just, you know, you’ve been here for a week. Maybe you and Alex could use some alone time.”

“Alex is in Seattle.” He reminds her with a sigh, trying his best to remain patient with her.

“Exactly,” Ruby decides to go ahead and start packing up his things for him, ignoring Strand’s baffled look and Melissa’s barely-suppressed laughter. “Even more reason to call her. You’ve got to make the long-distance thing work _somehow_.”

“That should be no problem,” Melissa finally chimes in, sharing a knowing look with Ruby. “Not with his voice!” She ends on an exclamation that carries into another fit of laughter, this time bordering on hysterical. It only gets worse when Ruby joins in. He gets the feeling that he’s stumbled upon some inside joke between the two, and that never ends well.

“What are you two going on about?” Strand snaps. “What’s wrong with my voice?”

Melissa rounds the desk and pats him on the shoulder, just once, before she slips past him to shut down his laptop. “There, there. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a great voice for radio.” She assures him with a straight face.

“Among other things,” Ruby snickers, at which point Melissa grows red-faced from holding in her laughter.

“Alright!” She claps her hands, handing Strand his laptop and briefcase. “Time to go. One last day of busy, busy work tomorrow before we send you back to Miss Reagan. Go home and get some rest!” She practically throws his coat at him and pushes him out of the office.

“Rest is for the single!” Ruby calls after him. “Go call that radio girl of yours!”

“Ruby!” Melissa hisses as she practically slams the door in Strand’s face. He sets a hand on the doorknob, ready to storm in and demand some answers, but thinks better of it when he hears shrieks of laughter coming from the other side of the door.

For what feels like the hundredth time, Strand questions his own decision to hire Ruby over that quiet, introverted PhD candidate.

 

 

 

“So they just kicked you out of the office?”

“Yes,” Strand huffs. “Melissa more or less slammed the door in my face.” 

The mental image of what his face must’ve looked like has Alex’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter. “And Ruby really said all of those things?”

“About my voice? Yes.” There’s a brief pause, and then Strand hesitantly asks: “What was she talking about, anyway?”

“Come on, you _know_ what she was talking about.” Alex flips the light on in her kitchen and sets her things down on the counter. She’d received a call from Strand just as she arrived home, and he’s been regaling her with the retelling of his assistants’ odd behavior while she gets herself settled in.

“No, I don’t.” Strand sounds genuinely exasperated by the situation. She can almost picture him running an aggravated hand through his hair, tugging a little harder at the ends than necessary.

Alex takes pity on the man. “Phone sex, Richard. They were talking about phone sex.” She grows concerned when the other line remains silent. “Richard?” God, she hopes he didn’t choke on his tea.

“… _what_?”

“Oh, you’re okay.” Alex sighs in relief, until she registers the questioning note in Strand’s voice. He isn’t just stunned; he’s clueless and curious. “Yeah, um,” Just how does one explain phone sex to one’s… whatever Strand is to her? “It’s that thing where… you know, you start off with _hey, baby,_ ” She pitches her voice lower, a poor attempt at a man’s voice. They could use some comedy right now. “ _What’re you wearing?”_

“Oh.” Clearly, her attempt at humor has gone unnoticed by Strand.

“Yeah,” Alex winces at his terse reply, suddenly glad they’re not having this conversation in person. “Oh.”

The line is silent for a while, but she keeps her phone up to her ear as she putters around the kitchen, retrieving some leftovers from the fridge and walking her dinner over to the microwave. Strand probably just needs a moment to process this, and then deal with the fact that his assistants were trying to… what, exactly? Help him get some via phone? She’s not sure if she should laugh at them or call them up to have a nice little chat about boundaries. As if the PNWS interns weren’t bad enough.

“So…” Strand finally says. “What _are_ you wearing?”

The fork in her hand clatters to the ground.

“Wait,” Alex ignores the insistent beeping of the microwave, equal parts intrigued and skeptical. “Are we actually doing this?”

There’s a missed beat, and then: “No,” Strand sighs heavily. “No, we’re not. I wouldn’t know the first thing about this… this… phone thing.” His omission of the word _sex_ doesn’t escape her. He’s so awkward and flustered and frustrated with himself that Alex can’t bring herself to feel even the slightest bit of disappointment.

“Richard, that’s okay.” She assures him gently. It’s a poorly-kept secret of his that he sometimes feels the age gap between them a little too keenly, that he occasionally thinks he’s making a fool out of himself with her. The last thing Alex wants is to make that worse or discourage him from making an effort for her. “We can revisit this some other time, if you’d like.”

“Some other time, then.” He agrees easily, noncommittally. She files away the relief in his voice for later analysis.

“So,” Alex quickly bounces back to normal, sweeping that little conversation under the rug for his sake. “You wanted to tell me something about the Sagamore?”

“Yes, that.” Strand latches on to her change in topic with thinly-veiled desperation. He clears his throat, and it’s like hearing a mask slide into place. “You’ll probably want to record this part.”

“Right.” Alex leaves her fork on the floor and her food in the microwave; dinner can wait a little while longer. “Just give me a minute to get the recorder started… and we’re rolling. Okay. So, any news about the Sagamore?”

“I received an email from the management today. They are agreeable to the idea of a follow-up, given that the results of the Institute’s initial investigation were somewhat inconclusive. You’ll recall that my team was originally brought on in 2010, during which we…”

Strand launches into a detailed account of the original investigation, along with a brief introduction on the Sagamore’s history. He goes on for a few minutes – ten, or maybe even fifteen. She’ll probably have to leave a fair bit of this out in the final edit but for now, Alex lets him go on.

He _does_ have a pretty great voice, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Unless someone steps forward and blesses us with the fic we all deserve, this is the closest this ship is getting to a phone sex fic. Calling on all smut writers! Boldly go where I dare not tread, I beg of you.


End file.
